I used a pinephone for a week or so, but people got angry at me, because calling me was impossible. Apart from that it is a slow but very interesting device. Mine is broken now, because I somehow managed to fry the wifi chip. I used arch btw.
Your hardware is supported; consider to check driver support over at linux-hardware.org. Honestly, most hardware should be well-supported, unless it has been released very recently or is hardware from known troublemakers (i.e. Nvidia GPUs or Broadcom etc).
Your ‘computer-literacy’ is at least (slightly) higher than average.
You’ve primarily used Windows in the past.
You prefer asking others instead of finding it out for yourself; the existence of this post supports that. (It’s either that or you like to have a second opinion in all cases; but I would have expected more input from you if that was the case 😅.)
Your hardware is somewhat modern.
You will mostly stick to defaults (at least initially).
You’re aware that while hundreds of actively maintained distros exist, most of them are either niche or not worth your time in the first place. If, from the remaining ones, the less impactful derivatives are surgically removed, followed by the removal of newbie-unfriendly distros, then only 10-20 distros would remain; most of which have been named in this thread already. And your needs dictate which one out of these would suit you best.
You will educate yourself regarding desktop environments like GNOME, KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, Xfce etc. Perhaps you will even boot into a live environment to check them out for yourself; loading a bunch of distros on your USB through Ventoy is excellent for that. This is important as they’re arguably the biggest contributor to how you perceive your Linux system. You should also be aware that in almost all cases a second (or heck; even third, fourth etc) desktop environment can be installed on your system and you should be able to switch between them relatively easily. However, in most cases, the one provided on first installation works close to flawless while others that have been tacked on later on are generally less polished.
You will educate yourself (eventually) regarding universal package managers (read: AppImage, Flatpak, Nix and Snap) and Distrobox as collectively they’ve (mostly) ridden the Linux ecosystem of problems related to software not being packaged in the native repos. Don’t feel the need to indulge into all of them simultaneously from the get-go. But be aware that they exist and that they enable one to install (almost) any package that has been made available to Linux regardless of their chosen distro.
Any distro I should use?
Typically, distros like Arch, Debian, Fedora, Linux Mint, openSUSE, Pop!_OS and Ubuntu (or their derivatives) will be mentioned in these kinds of queries. And it becomes mostly a popularity poll that measures what the community thinks is the preferred distro for beginners. And honestly, I don’t blame them as you haven’t really given us a lot to work with. My entry to that popularity poll would be Linux Mint. If you prefer to use GNOME or KDE Plasma instead, then consider either Fedora or openSUSE Tumbleweed. Additionally, Pop!_OS should be considered if Nvidia causes problems on all the others.
Feel free to inquire if you so desire!
EDIT: I just noticed how you mentioned to someone that your use case will be primarily gaming. First of all, gaming is somewhat equal on most distros; especially with the likes of Bazzite-Arch and Conty providing excellent environments for gaming regardless of installed distro. Though, these containers do still rely on the hosts kernel, therefore any perceived difference on same hardware but different kernels might be attributed to said kernels. Newer kernels generally come with improved performance; at least for newer hardware*. Though, perhaps more performance could be gained through other means as well. I will spare you the details, however, as this is potentially another rabbit hole within the initial rabbit hole. Therefore, instead, I will name a couple of distros known for being excellent for gaming purposes: Bazzite, Garuda Linux, Nobara Linux, PikaOS and RegataOS. If you want a no-nonsense system, just go for Bazzite; while initial setup might seem slightly more involved, it’s by far the most robust system out of these. This does come at the cost of being ‘unique’ amongst the others, but I believe it’s a great fit for your use case.
Completely agree that these kinds of threads end up being more a popularity poll than anything more actionable and usable. Everyone has their own opinions and preferences (which is great!), but that can end up being extremely overwhelming for a newbie.
sorry for being inactive here, I have other things happening at the moment. i’m just gonna put some stuff here
You will mostly stick to defaults (at least initially).
Kinda, I recently started to get interested in modding! It isn’t stuff like homebrew (although I was planning to root my phone, until OEM unlock was disabled. Thanks wiko.), I mostly just use something like vencord and Bloxstrap (just tweaks the Roblox client a bit, no exploits tho) This might be not seen as modding, but who cares.
Your ‘computer-literacy’ is at least (slightly) higher than average.
slightly, I do know how to use HTML to an extent, and can know whats the difference between RAM and hard drives, I still have a long way to go.
Ok here are some of the specs that I can remember (I’m currently not home as of typing this)
I have a HP 2022 Laptop, decent enough to play games
I have a 512 hard drive and 12 GB of RAM
only has 2 USB ports, most of it was replaced by type C, so dual booting with.something USB related might be hard
Dabbled a bit into linux with a VM (a few years ago tho, it was Ubuntu)
and thats all I could remember, I do plan to do an update post after trying out some distros on a VM, hopefully it works!
Start off with Gentoo to get the hang of the basics. Switch to Arch because compile times and heat burns. Try Linux from Scratch for a laugh, giggle and move on, but with a new found respect for distro maintainers.
What’s your use case? If it involves AAA games then that will narrow things a bit but if you simply want a bit of docs n that and, internet browsing and a spot of email and realtime sound and CAD then we’ll need a broader chat.
Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSuSE, Mint - those would be my starters for 10 in no particular order. Pick yours and your hip angle. I personally run Arch (actually) and Gentoo. I don’t recommend them as a dip your toe in the water job 8)
Fedora is a good base and comes with most DEs as spins so you don’t have to swap live.
Choose the one you like the most.
Personally, XFCE for all around customization amd performance, KDE for out of box solid functionality (and wayland if you care).
Once you feel comfortable, then go ahead and install or dual boot.
Silverblue is okay but kinda overrated because Flatpaks are not a silver bullet and will break or have basic FS dependency issues. Plus, it’s not a great intro to Linux experience because you can’t shoot yourself in the foot easily most tutorials on Linux will be for a regular system.
As for the distros themselves:
spoilerArch: Bleeding edge and you want to actually suffer every time you boot. Manjaro: Arch but supposed to work out of box. Debian: The King of stability at the cost of slower package updates Fedora: Cutting edge and works out of box unlike Arch Ubuntu: Useless Canonical distro that is heavily dated Pop! OS and ElementaryOS: user friendly downstream of Ubuntu that suffer the same issues as Ubuntu. Linux Mint: Ubuntu if it was actually good except it’s still a downstream so still has aforementioned Ubuntu issues. Gentoo: You want something completely custom Slackware: You want a classic Unix like machine but with Linux RHEL/CentOS/Rocky/Oracle/Etc: Enterprise Linux (server usage and desktop usage) OpenSUSE: The RPM equivalent of Arch & Debian (comes in rolling and stable releases). So you can choose bleeding edge or stability.
Personally, I have stuck with Fedora for a long time. Debian or OpenSUSE would be second choice. Arch only if I’m forced to like the steam deck lol.
Also ArchWiki is your friend. Even if you’re on any other distro, it has a wealth of the latest information and tutorials for whatever you want or need.
Mint is good, unless it’s very new hardware in which case the base (so things like drivers) can be a little dated.
Look up Ventoy. It’s a tool where you can put multiple ISOs onto one USB drive and boot into any of them. You can use that to try out a few distros. Maybe Mint, Fedora, PopOS, Ubuntu.
I've been linux-curious on-and-off for years. I've toyed with it several times but always gone back to Windows eventually. I have a laptop with a 7th gen Intel CPU that is not supported on Windows 11, so I decided to wipe it and threw the latest version of Linux Mint on it. Everything (except for a fingerprint reader) worked straight out of the figurative box, and I've been happily running it on that machine for about 6 months now. I think Mint is a good choice if you want a simple windows-like experience.
I still have a desktop PC running Windows for games and Adobe Lightroom and stuff, but I won't be going back to Windows on that laptop.
Convenient libraries/frameworks are fat. Because they are fat, they need frequent updates/security fixes, breaking codebase more often. With flatpack, developers can freeze lib versions at a convenient point, without caring for system dependencies.
I’m still pretty new to Linux so I’m finding new stuff all the time, I’ve been very happy with EndeavourOS but I am planning to switch to vanilla Arch when Plasma 6 fully drops. There are other distros that have caught my attention, they’re just abit beyond my skill level currently.
Only thing I’m really hoping for is improvements to Nvidia (Yes I will buy AMD next time I get the chance, I built this PC before I had any intention of using Linux)
Also excited for this. I tried KDE before but I didn’t find it easy to configure (too manually for a declarative guy like me). I like more the simplicity of Gnome.
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